What I’m Looking Forward to in 2016

08.01.2016 Personal 4

Since this is the first working week of the year I decided to join millions of people around the world and write my goals for 2016. In this post I will share with you what I want to achieve in terms of my translation business this year.   My goals are firmly grounded in the lessons I learned in 2015. I feel that over the previous year I managed to build a strong base for what I plan to accomplish in 2016. So, here we go!   Productivity and Time Management   Even after 10 years as a freelance translator, I’m still in the process of...

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Looking Back on 2015: 5 Lessons I Have Learned

30.12.2015 Personal 2

The end of the year is a great time to reflect on what’s been accomplished and learned over the past 12 months. For me as a translator 2015 was one of the most important and productive years. Today I’m sharing five important lessons I have learned. This is something I definitely want to keep in mind in the coming year.   Build relationships   I’ve been a freelance translator for my whole career (well, almost). When I was just starting out my Grandmother was worried about how I would endure being alone for my whole working day. There was absolutely nothing to worry about,...

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Holidays in Russia

23.12.2015 Uncategorized 4

Last week I was discussing my plans for the holiday season with a couple of colleague translators on Twitter and I mentioned that in Russia Christmas is celebrated on January, 7 instead of December, 25. Fiona Busfield wanted to know more about it and I thought that it would be a fun thing to write about. So if you want to learn why we don’t celebrate Christmas on the same day as the majority of Christians and have such a thing as the Old New Year, keep reading.   It all started back in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII replaced the Julian...

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My Morning Routine: What Helps Me Be More Productive

15.12.2015 Personal 1

I love reading about other people’s routines. I’m always on the lookout for ways to increase my productivity and make more out of my time and articles about someone else’s work processes or daily schedules are often full of useful tips and tricks. So I thought it might be interesting to share the way I organize my time and I decided to start with this post about my morning routine.   Why morning routine? Well, because for me morning is the most important part of the day. The way I spend it has a huge impact on my productivity and well-being throughout...

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Side Projects: Sharing, Helping, Connecting and Much More

25.11.2015 For translators 6

Translators are creative entrepreneurs. Creativity is often defined as the ability to see connections between things and use them to synthesize something new. Taking the source text, seeing the connections between grammar structures and the meanings of the words in two different languages and producing a new text in you target language — that’s what translators do. And like real creatives many of us have side projects.   Today’s post is all about passion projects — why we have them, how we make time for them in our busy lives and what benefits they can bring us. To give you a broader perspective...

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7 Reasons to Avoid Cheap Translation (+ Ways to Save Money while Enhancing Translation Quality)

16.10.2015 For translation buyers 7

When I read articles like this, I often wonder why big and small companies think that cheap translation (machine translation being the cheapest option) is the best choice. Why try saving at the expense of you reputation, customer relationships and time you could have spent on improving your product? Today I want to highlight some of the reasons why it’s better to avoid anyone who promises high quality at low prices.   1 Translation requires more than just being able to speak two languages, so good translation can’t be cheap   Translation is a skill. It takes years of practice to become good at...

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How I Built My Marketing Plan

30.09.2015 For translators 9

Last week my colleague Emeline Jamoul from In Touch Translations asked me whether I had a marketing plan. Since I do have one, I thought it might be interesting to share my experience with others who are just starting out and are uncertain of how to go about making it.   As you probably know, I mainly specialize in translation of marketing texts. This is why it's somewhat ironic that I hardly did any marketing until last April.   And then I came across a book called Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer by Liam Veitch. I recommend reading this book to anyone struggling with...

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11 Myths about Translation and Translators

22.09.2015 For translation buyers 30

There's a lot of myths about translation and translators. Sometimes they seem to contradict each other. In this post I'm going to debunk some of these myths.   1 Anyone who speaks two languages can be a translator   Translation is a skill. That means that you've got to spend some time on deliberate practice before you become good at it. It's also important to have good writing skills in the target language, know the terminology, be able to do research and use CAT-tools. Are you sure that your friend who studied French at the University 10 years ago is a good choice for translating your website?   2...

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Low translation rates: why working for peanuts is BAD for you

15.09.2015 For translators 14

I often come across great posts written by fellow translators on the subject of low translation rates. Here's a couple of more recent examples for you. The first one is a story shared by Marie Bortnov, a Nl>En medical translator. The second one was published last week by Dmitry Kornyukhov, also known as the Best Russian Translator, on his blog. These two posts made me think of my own reasons to start breaking out of the bulk translations market earlier this year and in this post I want to share them with you.   I won't write about the obvious fact that...

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What I learned during three months of marketing translation business

01.09.2015 For translators 6

I have a confession to make: in spite of the fact that I've been a freelance translator for the past 10 years (virtually my whole career), I'm new at marketing my services. These past three months have opened a whole new world for me and today I want to share, what I have learned during this time. This won't be anything ground-breaking, but it might strike a chord with someone like me a little over three months ago.   1 Connect with colleagues   If I had to choose one piece of advice, this would be my absolute favorite. I can't stress enough the...

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